On Jun 2, 11:44Â am, "Guv Martin O'MORON can suckle my middle leg!"
yahoo.com> wrote:> Sears fails on service for one customer
>
> Dan Thanh Dang | Consuming Interests
> June 1, 2008
>
> Once, Sears, Roebuck & Co. was a retailing giant with few rivals.
>
> The signs over its doors promised, "Satisfaction Guaranteed or Your
> Money Back."
>
> Times have changed.
>
> Best Buy, Home Depot and Lowe's have lured its electronics, tools and
> appliance customers away. You can buy cheaper, hipper apparel and home
> products at Wal-Mart, Target and Kohl's. Sears beckons you with the
> slogan, "The good life at a great price. Guaranteed," but if the good
> life is available for less elsewhere, all that's left is the
> guarantee.
>
> Michael Burnett found even that lacking after he purchased a $1,007.98
> LCD Sylvania television and three-year warranty Jan. 10 from the Sears
> store in Westminster.
>
> After 2 1/2 months of use, the 37-inch flat-panel TV stopped working,
> the 43-year-old Postal Service employee said.
>
> "I shopped around before I bought the TV," Burnett said. "I'm 40-
> something-years-old, and Sears has been around forever. I figured,
> better to trust them than some big-screen TV shop that's only been
> around for a few years. I was really shocked by the lack of care and
> service I received when the TV stopped working."
>
> Burnett first called for help April 2 and scheduled an appointment for
> the next day. That night, Sears called to cancel the service call. On
> April 3, Burnett called again and was told the next available
> appointment was April 5.
>
> On April 4, Sears called to ask him to schedule an appointment.
>
> "I told them I did that last night after they canceled my
> appointment," Burnett said. "The Sears customer service rep said no
> one put it on the schedule, and the next service call would be on
> April 10."
>
> Burnett didn't give up there. He drove to Westminster to tell a
> manager his problem face-to-face. Burnett explained his situation and
> asked if a refund was possible since the TV was less than three months
> old.
>
> "I was told no refunds after 30 days," Burnett said. "I had to wait."
>
> When a technician did show April 10, he informed Burnett that the TV's
> inverter board, a high frequency circuit that helps power the screen,
> was bad.
>
> "He had to order a new one," Burnett said. "He said it would take one
> week to be shipped to my house, but another three weeks before he
> could come back to install it. I went to the store, and a manager told
> me the part would be there in three or four days. He also told me to
> call back to schedule the repair."
>
> Over the next three weeks, Burnett found himself stuck in an unending
> loop of Jekyll-and-Hyde-like customer service interactions.
>
> When the part never showed, Burnett called. Sears told him they
> weren't sure when the part would arrive. In a visit to the store, a
> sales rep asked him if he wanted to rent and pay for a regular TV
> while his was out of commission. On another visit, a manager asked if
> anyone offered him a comparable, loaner TV. (Burnett accepted the
> offer.)
>
> In a call he received out of the blue from Sylvania, Burnett was told
> the part was no longer available, and he should get a refund. Checking
> back with Sears, yet another manager told him the part was shipped. Oh
> yes, and he would get no refund.
>
> "It's so absurd," Burnett said. "I don't even want to deal with them
> anymore. I don't even trust them to fix the TV. I just want a refund,
> but they won't give me one and they won't give me another TV."
>
> By the time I got involved, Burnett had received the part, but he
> still wanted a refund.
>
> Sylvania didn't respond to two voice mails from me. But Sears Holdings
> in Chicago responded right away: No way.
>
> "We can repair it, but we can't refund his money," said Chris
> Braithwaite, a Sears spokesman. "We're willing to hold up our end of
> that bargain. The warranty doesn't cover refunds if the product can be
> repaired."
>
> Braithwaite said he could not explain why delivery of the part took
> more than a month or why scheduling a service call was so difficult.
>
> "He should have been given a loaner TV," he said. "Everyone should be
> on the same page, and that message should be consistent."
>
> At least the no-refund-no-new-TV message was consistent, right?
>
> Wrong.
>
> When I called Burnett to share the bad news with him, he surprised me
> with his own news.
>
> First, he told me that a woman from Sears left an authorization number
> on his voice mail to get a refund. But when he took that code to
> Sears, no one knew anything about it. Faced with more malarkey,
> Burnett almost gave up.
>
> "I asked to speak to a manager, and I ended up with one who was very
> considerate and very helpful," Burnett said. "I told him my story. I
> asked if I could just keep the loaner 42-inch Sharp. He agreed to it
> if I brought back my old one. That's all I wanted."
>
> Puzzled, I called Sears. Braithwaite was unaware of the resolution,
> saying only, "We're just happy the customer is satisfied."
>
> Come again?
>
> What just happened there? Usually, I have some neat and tidy lesson to
> help other consumers avoid such shenanigans. This time, I'm confused,
> too.
>
> The message I thought Sears was trying to send was that it would abide
> by its repair warranty regardless of how badly it mucked up customer
> service in the process. It's not a great lesson consumers want to
> learn, but one that makes some sense for companies.
>
> But the three-part message that Sears sent me was: A. There is no
> communication whatsoever between corporate, its customer service
> department and the local stores. B. It has no earthly idea how to
> follow through on service calls. C. Its customer service performance
> is abysmal and lacks consistent policies.
>
> In today's highly competitive retail market, Sears can't bank on its
> old reputation. One rule of retailing that hasn't changed is that you
> must train your staff to take care of your customers.
>
> Whether you're big or small, a veteran or a newcomer, a large chain or
> an independent business, and especially in a tight economy, if you're
> not selling something unique and valuable (which Sears is not), you'd
> better differentiate yourself with outstanding service.
>
> Sears kicked the pooch on this one. What little good Burnett
> experienced came too little, too late.
>
> "I'm satisfied with what I got," Burnett said. "I don't have a
> warranty for the Sharp TV, but I don't want to have anything to do
> with Sears anymore."
and now this follow-up:
Sears TV incident brings out some anger
by Dan Thanh Dang (Baltimore Sun)
June 8, 2008
There's nothing like feeling betrayed by an old and trusted friend to
get your blood going.
Last week, I said Sears kicked the pooch by bungling its response to
Michael Burnett's repeated pleas to fix or replace his faulty 2 1/2 -
month-old Sylvania LCD TV. By the overwhelming feedback I've received,
you would have thought I said that Sears tortured, maimed and then
killed the pooch.
Burnett's tale of canceled appointments, rescheduled service calls and
corporate confusion elicited a level of anger, resentment,
frustration, hurt and bitterness from readers that I haven't seen in
two years of writing this column - far above the reaction even to
other repeat corporate offenders who have botched customer service as
badly, if not worse, than Sears did in this case.
"I, like the man in the article, bought all of our appliances for our
new home from Sears believing that they made quality products and
stood by them," wrote Meg deFries of White Hall. She said Sears failed
to fix her washer, forcing her to drag soiled diapers to a laundromat
for six weeks. "I am of a different ilk now and gladly voice my
opinion and experience to others. Thank you, again, for making me feel
less individually abused by a big company."
Dave Hall of Harford County said that in persistent inquiries into the
status of his rebate, he found that "the people that answer the phone
are helpless and frustrated. It must be horrible to have a job with no
tools or methods to accomplish your job title. One person actually
said, 'I do not know why I am working here.'"
Reader Robyn Costello's "horrific" attempts to get service for the
appliances she purchased from Sears made her reach the conclusion that
"there appears to be a universal pattern that Sears is clueless to
correct, perhaps because they're blissfully unaware they have a
problem - the 'duh' syndrome is firmly entrenched."
In a letter to Sears Holdings' corporate office in Chicago, Fred
Schwaner recounted countless broken promises to repair a TV, hot water
heater and freezer he purchased from the retailer.
"I am so tired of Sears' deceptions and lies from the [technicians]
and your 1 (800) repair number," Schwaner wrote in his e-mail, which
he copied to me. "Please convince me why I should continue with this
aggravation?"
And that's just a smattering of the e-mails I received.
Almost all of the people I heard from swore never to do business with
Sears again.
More interestingly, almost all of them also sounded deeply wounded and
betrayed.
Such passion got me thinking that deep down in our consumer psyche,
being wronged by Sears feels so much more offensive than being wronged
by the giant super-savings chain down the street because, years ago,
Sears convinced us that it was far better than that.
After all, Sears showed us that all you wanted and needed could be
found within its doors or catalog. Sears got us used to it going above
and beyond to fix the occasional problems that popped up. And most of
all, Sears treated customers like family or old friends who deserved
the best.
As Bob Dewey wrote so eloquently, "Long before malls, big box stores
and the Internet, generations of parents would show their kids the
Sears catalog come November because 'that's what Santa Claus builds up
at the North Pole. Whaddya want for Christmas, son?!' And the parents
bought Kenmore appliances because they were one of the first and most
reliable brands mass produced.
"Maybe that's part of the reason why some people had such a negative
reaction" to Sears in last week's column, Dewey said. "Sears is a
legendary American business with a storied past. It's not a phone
company, cable TV, or airline company which we're accustomed to
bashing."
Three years ago, struggling Kmart purchased struggling Sears to build
on both companies' strengths. What they created was an even bigger
struggling company with no sense of identity. Cutbacks in consumer
spending, high energy prices and the poor economy have made it worse.
Given such ailments, readers said they weren't surprised that Sears
Holdings Corp. lost $56 million in its first quarter. Furthermore,
Sears domestic sales at stores open at least a year declined 9.8
percent, and Kmart's fell 7.1 percent.
"There doesn't seem to be anyone who knows how to handle customers and
their problems," wrote Bruce Wilcox, a retired Sears employee who
spent 41 years working at the local and corporate level. "The word,
'no,' did not appear when working complaints years ago. The customer
was always right. Give them what they want and you have a friend for
life, and your business grows. Today everything is lost to the name of
profit and 'systems.' The right hand has no idea what the left is
doing. Thus the current position of a once great retailer."
No one expects retailers to treat consumers as if they're always right
anymore, especially since we know shoppers are capable of being wrong,
too. But what consumers can and should expect is good service, good
communication, fairness and follow through when things go wrong.
Sears has forgotten how it built its reputation. What a tragic
mistake, since customers' memories have not faded quite so fast.
Maybe that's why Stephanie Arnold of Baltimore said last week's column
prompted her to "e-mail Sears to inform them that potential customers
do take this kind of information to heart. Maybe, if more people
provide feedback, there might be some change."
Nostalgia makes all of us hope Sears doesn't go the way of Hecht's,
Hechinger and Hutzler's. But nostalgia alone won't keep us coming
back.
